


make you an offer

by Damkianna



Category: The Firm (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Antagonism, Bad Decisions, Belligerent Sexual Tension, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 01:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20899772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: Or: four things Mitch accepted from Joey even though he didn't want to, plus one thing he thought he wanted until he got it—but it turned out that wasn't what he was looking for after all.





	make you an offer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/gifts).

> ♥! This is basically just a pile of episode tags/missing scenes set in and around 1.19, 1.20, 1.21, and 1.22, but I hope very much that you enjoy it, and have had a great Giftbox. :D

**one:** a drink.

Mitch had already known Joey Morolto was bad news. As if he could be anything else. But that man, Antonio, found dead—that's the first time Mitch is forced to face head-on exactly what it is he's doing, exactly who it is he's working for. He's been so focused on himself, his problems, trying to make sure this can't turn into a bigger mess than he can handle; and somewhere in there he managed to convince himself that if he was just careful, it didn't have to touch him. He'd do this one thing for Joey, keep his head down and get Patrick acquitted, and that would be it. A job, that was all. Then he'd be in the clear.

But—this is who he's working for. This is what he's facilitating. And he can't stand the idea that Joey thinks Mitch is resigned to that, is okay with that.

He isn't even sure what it is he wants to say. Funny, he thinks grimly, that the infamous Mitch McDeere's stuck without an opening statement. He can't—he can't refuse Joey, can't back out; every reason he had for reluctantly agreeing in the first place still applies. And it isn't like he's going to be able to talk Joey into stopping whatever it is he thinks he's doing, promising to play nice and be a good boy. He just—

He just doesn't want Joey to think he wasn't paying attention. He doesn't want Joey to think he didn't notice. He wants Joey to understand that it was wrong, and that Mitch isn't going to forget about it.

The restaurant looks closed, but it isn't, or at least the front door opens for Mitch when he tries it. There's no one visible up front, but he can hear voices, a laugh, and when he goes in and looks along the row of booths against the wall, that's where Joey is.

Sitting back, arm up along the seat, just waving away a guy in a dark suit. Looking pleased with himself, Mitch thinks sourly. Probably had the restaurant cleared for some more of his _business_, and whatever it is, it went well.

And then Joey looks up.

"Mitch! What an unexpected honor," he says, and his tone is warm, ingenuous, but his eyes are sharp. "Didn't think I'd see you here this morning. Come on, sit down. Have a drink."

"Starting a little early, don't you think?" Mitch says flatly.

"It's five o'clock somewhere," Joey murmurs, without looking away.

And he didn't even move, barely raised his voice; but someone must have heard him anyway, because not ten seconds later, a waiter's gliding up to the booth with a bottle, two glasses.

"Thanks, Marco," Joey says, and then, "You going to make me repeat myself?"

Mitch grits his teeth, and sits down.

Joey's already lifting the bottle, drawing the glass stopper free and pouring one-handed.

"Joey, I really don't want—"

"Oh, come on," Joey says. "On the house," and nudges a precise two fingers of liquor across the table toward Mitch with a deceptively sweet smile.

Mitch doesn't touch it. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want anything of Joey's at all. "I appreciate the thought," he bites out, but Joey doesn't let him finish.

"You're going to hurt my feelings, Mitch," Joey says softly.

Mitch looks at him. The smile's still there, that blatantly false sweetness; because Joey's eyes are dark and hard. And Mitch thinks about Ray, how scrupulously careful he always is to call Joey "Mr. Morolto" to his face—that if he were standing here, he'd be widening his eyes pointedly at Mitch, silently begging him to just take the goddamn drink and stop being an idiot.

A sip won't kill him. Might even make this conversation a little easier, giving ground on something that doesn't actually matter at all, that has no relevance to any of the things Mitch can't stand about Joey and his business.

He should enjoy it, even, he thinks, lifting the glass to his mouth. Good liquor, on Joey's dime.

But he can't. Feels like the whole entire mess in microcosm, sitting here like this with Joey watching him—with Joey setting him up like one little concession is all he wants and then Mitch is home free, when they both goddamn well know it's not going to end there.

**two:** a suit.

"Stick around a minute, will you?"

Mitch glances back, wary.

He was only here to go over some paperwork with Joey, that's all. Not even anything complicated. He'd stayed calm, professional. He hadn't even been sure what it was he was worried about: that Joey was going to casually pay someone off to get the judge removed from the case next, or—

Or that he was going to bring up the thing where Mitch had saved his life.

But whatever it was that had been making something in his chest lurch, or the nape of his neck prickle, whenever Joey had looked at him and opened his mouth—it hadn't materialized.

And now he's got the completed paperwork in his briefcase and his hand on the door handle, and Joey's asking him to stay.

"Joey—"

"Nothing illegal, I promise," Joey murmurs, dry, and then he's suddenly close, closing his hand over the back of Mitch's on the door handle—using their combined grip to turn it and open the door, just far enough to lean out and call, "All right, show him up."

"Joey," Mitch says again, aiming to make it a warning and probably missing by a mile.

He's thinking half a dozen different things: that it's a new "witness" Joey's paid off, that it's a juror Joey's bought and he's about to have to explain why that's not okay with the clearest, most objective legal terminology he can manage. That Joey's found whoever did murder Charlotte Walker and invited them to come chat about it. That Mitch is about to get whacked, because Joey could just about bear to extort legal aid from him, but owing Mitch his life is more than he can stand—

And then Joey's opening the door wider, hand steady on Mitch's; herding Mitch back into the office at the same time that he's waving in an unfamiliar man in a fine dark suit.

Who's holding a measuring tape.

"No," Mitch says immediately.

"Mitch, Mitch, Mitch—"

"There's only two things you could possibly need my measurements for," Mitch says, "and I don't need a coffin _or_ a suit, thank you very much."

Never mind that he's probably going to need both, he thinks grimly, by the time this is over.

"Oh, come on, now," Joey says, and finally lifts his hand off Mitch's to skim the backs of two fingers up Mitch's chest and flick his lapel dismissively. "Look at this."

"This suit is fine," Mitch grits out.

"Not when you work for me, it isn't," Joey says, in that dulcet sharp-eyed way that dares Mitch to contradict him.

And Mitch has never been particularly interested in backing down from Joey's dares. "I don't work for you, Joey. Patrick is my client."

"Sure," Joey says. "And I'm footing the bill."

Joey's tailor doesn't seem particularly surprised by all this protest; maybe Mitch isn't the first person who's had to suffer this brand of generosity from Joey Morolto. Or maybe the guy's just paid well enough to keep his opinions to himself.

And this isn't his fault, so Mitch doesn't shove him away when he comes close enough to reach out and start measuring the length of one of Mitch's arms. "Joey—"

"You don't look the way a family lawyer ought to look."

"Because I'm _not_ a—family lawyer," Mitch snaps.

Joey frowns, tilts his head—not because he's actually unhappy, Mitch thinks, but because he's decided it's the next move in this ridiculous conversation. "I'm just trying to help you make the right impression, Mitch. The prosecution needs to know that they aren't going to win this, that they're up against more than they can handle."

"I usually find it's more useful to be underestimated," Mitch says.

And that makes Joey's face change: not performative, not deliberate, or at least Mitch doesn't think so. The frown's gone, and he's just looking at Mitch, steady and intent and unreadable. And his hand—

His hand's still touching Mitch, resting there, half-curled now around Mitch's lapel; and for some reason Mitch's tie feels abruptly too tight.

"I'm sure you do," he murmurs at last, and then smooths down Mitch's lapel and finally lets it go. "Consider this an ace up your sleeve for when you _don't_ want to be underestimated anymore, then."

"Joey," Mitch tries, one more time; but it's already starting to feel too late. The tailor knows what he's doing, and he already seems to have the half-dozen measurements he needs of Mitch's torso, dropping down to loop the measuring tape smoothly around one cuff of Mitch's slacks.

"Tony will be gentle with your inseam, I promise," Joey says, very low. And Mitch is stuck there staring at him, face hot, for more than long enough for Joey's words to be proven accurate: he doesn't even feel it, the guy's hands quick and clinical and professional—everything Joey's tone wasn't.

**three:** shelter.

"I told you I prefer my office," Mitch bites out.

"And I told you I don't care," Joey observes, mild, and smiles.

As if he hasn't already won, given that Mitch got in the goddamn car. It just—feels important to remind him, sometimes. To not let him think Mitch is conceding anything. After the other day, that man bloody and tied to a chair, like it was no big deal, it feels important for Joey to know Mitch isn't just going to go along with whatever he comes up with next without protest.

Joey may claim this isn't how he wanted his life to turn out; but it did, and he chose for it to. And he might be hoping to choose for Mitch, too, but that doesn't mean Mitch has to let him.

"Why did you even call me, Joey? Have you got the paperwork together already?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Joey says. "Just enjoy the ride, Mitch."

Luckily, there's not that much "ride" to enjoy; it isn't even half an hour before they're slowing, coming to a stop, and the car doors are opening from the outside before Mitch can even reach for them.

The restaurant, naturally. As if Mitch couldn't have just come here himself, he thinks sourly, if Joey wanted to talk.

As it turns out, he couldn't have. But Joey doesn't explain that to him until they're inside.

"Retaliation," Mitch repeats, when Joey's done. "Against me."

"Against me," Joey corrects. "But I wouldn't put it past Johnny to use you to send a message. He knows I'm getting some use out of you, and that it's valuable enough to me that I haven't killed you. If he could get to me easy enough to make it worth his while to try, I'd have way bigger problems than him. But you?" He shrugs a shoulder, makes a considering face—because he's probably thought about it before, about what it would take, how easy it would be to kill Mitch.

Mitch looks at him. He's already pretty sure there's at least a dozen things Joey's not telling him, and probably half of what he did say is bullshit. But it wouldn't surprise Mitch at all, that there's somebody out there who wants to get even with Joey one way or another. And anybody who knows anything about Joey Morolto must—must know the same thing: how easy it would be for him to kill Mitch, and that it means something that he hasn't.

"Just a few hours," Joey's saying. "Just till I got a guy on him for real. Then you can be on about your merry way, I promise."

Mitch grits his teeth. On the one hand, he's already gotten a lot closer to taking a bullet for Joey Morolto than he's comfortable with, and he's not eager to do it again. On the other hand, acknowledging that means—staying here. All afternoon. With Joey.

"Fine," he makes himself say.

Joey beams at him, and stands. And then raises both eyebrows when Mitch fails to follow suit.

"I'm good out here, thanks," Mitch says.

"Really?" Joey inquires, solicitious. "Huh. You don't mind everybody who comes in and out of here to do business with me looking you right in the face, seeing that you're my guy?"

Mitch bites his lip. Dammit.

"Up to you, Mitch," Joey murmurs sweetly, and smiles.

*

So that's how he ends up back in Joey's goddamn office yet again.

And it—it really is _hours_. Joey wasn't kidding about that part. Whoever this Johnny is, he must be making himself pretty hard to find.

But what else can Mitch do? It isn't like he has _guys_ he can send to track people down and follow them around all day, to keep them from double-tapping him in the head. He just has to wait for Joey to take care of it.

So they sit there. Joey makes a couple calls, but it can't be anything that important or he wouldn't let Mitch stay in the room while he does it. He loses the suit jacket, rolls up his sleeves; not making a point out of it, just absently making himself comfortable, which is the only reason Mitch grudgingly lets himself do the same.

After a little while, it starts to rain. The windows in here are mostly covered—because of course they are, Mitch thinks, when the point of this whole ridiculous exercise is to keep Mitch out of sight. But he can hear it, faint rush of white noise against the panes; and it changes the light, softens everything's edges.

Or maybe that's the scotch Joey pulls out after the first hour.

Mitch isn't even sure, later, how exactly they start talking. Or why. He can't trace the path of the conversation, not with any real certainty; and he thinks maybe he had known, a tidbit lodged somewhere at the back of his mind, that Joey had gone to college, so that one brief tangent can't quite be called a surprise.

But it's what sticks with him afterward. Sitting there, looking at Joey Morolto, thinking about him as any other undergrad crossing a college campus on a rainy afternoon like this one. _I was never supposed to run this family_, that's what Joey had said the other day. _I became something I never wanted to be_.

It's the first time since Mitch heard those words come out of Joey's mouth that he's thought to wonder what Joey _had_ wanted to be instead. Who he'd have decided to be, if he'd felt like it was up to him.

He doesn't know what kind of look the thought puts on his face. But whatever it is, Joey spots it; and for a second, they're sitting there looking across a table at each other, and it feels like the whole world is made up of rainy dimness and Joey's eyes.

Then Joey looks away, and curls a hand around Mitch's on his glass—just to hold it steady, as he pours Mitch another drink.

But for a second—

For a second, Mitch almost thought he was about to do something else; and it takes a lot longer than it should for his heart to stop pounding.

**four:** a little attention.

Maybe he should have been expecting it.

After all, it's not like Mitch hasn't thought about it before. That Joey must have had to come up with some kind of rationale for why he hasn't just—killed Mitch, gotten it all over with. There's Patrick, yeah, but there are better lawyers than Mitch out there, if not many of them; and Mitch sent Joey's father to prison. Mitch has his uses, sure, but even with that, Joey must need to walk a line: he can't let it sound like he _needs_ Mitch, like he couldn't save Patrick without him. Like he's weak.

It must be an issue for Joey, trying to explain it in a way that'll stick. Especially now, after the Russians kidnapped Mitch from a church driveway and shoved him in a flooded quarry; after Joey's officially switched from employing Mitch for his own convenience to actively staking a claim, putting Mitch under the family's protection for real.

But if it is, he's never brought it up with Mitch. So yeah, it's a surprise, helpless and infuriating, when it happens.

Split-second, like the flip of a switch. Joey's walking him down the hallway from Joey's office, stops him idly with a hand at his shoulder—and then all of a sudden takes a step _in_, abrupt, close. Mitch jerks a little, but there's nowhere to go, the wall inescapably present at his back, and—and Joey's hand is _skimming up Mitch's chest_ now. Not over the suit jacket, under it, fingertips bumping their way up the line of buttons; pausing and turning over, winding Mitch's tie around his palm, and what the hell does he think he's doing?

Except somehow Mitch doesn't quite manage to say it. The words are piled up in his throat, but they don't make it out across his tongue. It—it feels like they'd get drowned out, somehow, by the impossibly loud rasp of silk in Joey's grip, by the way Joey's eyes have gone dark and heavy-lidded; by the scrape of the dress shoe he's sliding between Mitch's, like he's about to knee Mitch's thighs apart—

Something moves, at the end of the hallway. Mitch startles, head coming up, skin prickling: a door closing, that's all he sees, but someone must have been there. Someone was watching whatever the hell that was. And Mitch almost can't decide whether that thought makes him uncomfortable, or whether he just wants to run after them, grab them by the shoulder and spin them around and say, _So you saw that too, right? You saw the way he was—_

"Oh, perfect," Joey murmurs, nearly into Mitch's shoulder. "Masterful." He tilts his head and smiles at Mitch, releases Mitch's tie and solicitously smooths it back down, and pats Mitch's lapels into place. "Thanks, you're a doll."

"_Thanks_," Mitch repeats.

Joey's smile gets wider. "Don't worry about it," he suggests, already moving away again.

But even if Mitch can't catch whoever was at the other end of the hallway, he can catch Joey—and he does, hand at Joey's shoulder clenching tight enough to wrinkle Joey's suit. "You did that on purpose," he says.

Half a stab in the dark, but the way Joey's eyebrows rise, the bland inquiring look on his face, are all Mitch needs to decide it must have hit home. "Now, Mitch—"

"You—whatever that was. You were trying to make it look like—" Mitch cuts himself off again, and god, he's got to be able to get out a complete sentence one of these days; it's just so hard to get his head around.

(Because it's only just started occurring to him at all. When he's alone, when it's dark, when there's nothing else to think about; insidious, illicit. Laughable, or it should be, but somehow he never ends up laughing. That he and Joey could—not that he would, not that he wants to, but—

And now, for a handful of seconds, Joey tugged it casually into the light, made it not just possible but _plausible_. Deliberately made someone think that they—that they already _were_. And Mitch has absolutely no idea why.)

"Nothing you need to worry about," Joey says, cool, but if he thinks Mitch is going to settle for that, he's got another think coming.

"Why," Mitch bites out, barely even a question.

Joey's eyebrows rise a little higher. He leans in again, just a little—intent, confiding. "You really want to know?"

"I think I have a right to," Mitch says, and it's even true.

"Oh, well, since you're _entitled_," Joey murmurs, sharp. "I saw a shot, and I took it. You aren't just useful anymore, Mitch. I've made it clear to the family that I expect them to stick their necks out for you, if the need arises. You think I do that for just anybody? And they all want to know why."

Except—_that_—isn't the kind of reason guys like Joey's are going to be happy with.

"And," Mitch says slowly, "you just gave an answer to whoever was at the end of the hall. You want to see what they'll do with it. Who they'll give to; or if they don't give it to anybody, or if they use it against you."

Joey's gaze drops, tacit concession. "Sal's a good guy," Joey says, more softly. "I like him. I'd trust him, if I thought I could. But I want to be sure." And then his eyes come back up, and the whole veneer's painted in place all over again, aggressively unreadable. "I'm sure he won't hold it against you," he adds, and it's so casual Mitch abruptly wants to punch him in the face.

"Don't ever do that to me again," Mitch says, very low, and sets a hand at the center of Joey's chest—shoves, so Joey has to rock back a step.

Joey lifts his hands, palm-out, defensive, and takes another step away. Cooperative, unthreatening. Giving way without a fight, and somehow that just makes the frustration simmering under Mitch's skin sting hotter.

Mitch turns on his heel, steps around the corner, and leaves without looking back.

**and one:** an apology.

Joey isn't the last person Mitch is expecting to see, when he looks up at the sound of shave-and-a-haircut against his office doorframe.

But he's pretty close to it.

"Can I help you?" Mitch says flatly.

"I believe we had an appointment," Joey says. "Slipped your mind, I'm sure."

Mitch glances at the clock. Sure enough, it's almost two and a half hours after he was supposed to be there to talk to Patrick—and Joey.

"Well, how about that," he says to Joey, very level, and then pointedly lowers his eyes back to his desk. What's in front of him is just scrap paper, shorthand practice; but Joey doesn't need to know it. "I guess maybe I just didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention."

Joey is silent.

Mitch doesn't look up.

"I—apologize."

Mitch's breath snags in his throat.

Funny, he thinks distantly. Up until about a second ago, he'd have sworn that was exactly what he was looking for from Joey, exactly what he'd just spent the last three days resenting Joey for withholding. And he'd been sure it was the last thing Joey was ever going to give him. As if the words _I'm sorry_ had a snowball's chance in hell of escaping Joey Morolto's lips.

But now that they have, he discovers he's not surprised, or appreciative, or grudgingly grateful. He mostly wants to grab them and shove them right back where they came from.

"How gracious of you," he says to the desk instead, clipped and steady, and still doesn't look up.

He can hear Joey's frustrated sigh just fine, though.

"Look, Mitch, what do you want? What are you looking for? All right, I get it, you're pissed off. But I think maybe you're forgetting how our little arrangement works, here. We got one score to settle, you and me, and then we're done. You don't get to add new charges. You don't get to change the terms—"

"They already _have_ changed," Mitch says, and does look up, then; stands, in a furious rush, because he can't not, and rounds the desk in a handful of quick sharp strides. "Joey—they already have changed. Haven't they?"

Joey doesn't answer. Mitch can see the muscles in his jaw jump.

"Is that still what you want from me? One score settled, and we're done?" Mitch shakes his head, sucks in a breath. He's angry, still, and he doesn't quite know why. Or—or maybe he just doesn't want to acknowledge that he does. But if he can't say it to himself, how's he ever going to say it to Joey?

He bites the tip of his tongue, and he makes himself do exactly what Joey did to him: he looks right at it, drags it out from where it was hiding and into the light, and doesn't let himself flinch from it.

"I don't want you to apologize," he finds himself saying slowly, and the words and the understanding that prompted them feel simultaneous, like he's discovering them to be true as he hears them. "I don't want you to be sorry. It's not that you did it at all—it's that you did it like that."

Joey's eyes narrow; he doesn't even seem to mean to, but he takes a half-step back, as if Mitch is crowding him, for all that Mitch hasn't moved.

"Mitch."

"That you'd make it look like it was something it wasn't," Mitch persists, "when you wouldn't—"

He cuts himself off—and does move then, a step forward, hand out, half-formed urge to catch Joey's sleeve and hold him still so he can't bolt before Mitch figures out what the hell he's trying to say. It's just something about the contrast, that Joey hasn't ever _tried_ anything, not really; except he's thought about it, he must have, or the idea of faking it, using it like that, wouldn't have occurred to him. And that the idea of him and Mitch getting involved was fit to be used as a test, but not—

Mitch pauses. A test, he thinks again. A test, and Joey had told him it was for Sal. Maybe it even had been. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a test for Mitch, too: to see what he'd do, if he thought Joey was suddenly feeling him up, no context. If he'd punch Joey in the face, or push him away.

Or stand there like a poleaxed idiot and let him do it.

And of course Joey would rather play mind games, lie and dodge and press for an advantage, than take an honest goddamn chance.

"When you didn't mean it," Mitch says aloud at last.

Joey snorts, makes a face like he wants to sneer—like it's ridiculous to think that he could have meant it, or at least like he wants Mitch to believe that it is.

Which is abruptly so frustrating that Mitch does grab his sleeve after all; his sleeve, his wrist, and it's just one more stride, backing Joey up as he takes it, to pin Joey against the doorframe. "Well, I mean it," he bites out, and holds Joey there, and presses his mouth to Joey's.

Joey freezes under it, for about half a second. Freezes, and sucks in a surprised little breath against Mitch's lips. And then suddenly he's tensing, twisting, beneath Mitch's hands—biting Mitch's mouth, viciously hard.

But Mitch already decided he wasn't going to let this go that easy. He ignores the throb, doesn't ease up or pull away. He moves a hand from Joey's chest, the base of his throat, to his chin; catches Joey's face with it to hold him there, and kisses him harder, more thoroughly.

"You think that's going to scare me off?" he murmurs against Joey's mouth, when Joey's released him. "Really?"

Joey doesn't say anything, for a long moment. But his breath's coming fast, harsh, against Mitch's jaw. "This is not a good idea," he says at last, almost gently.

"No, it's not," Mitch agrees, and kisses him again.


End file.
